When I was taking a lot of composition/creative writing classes, we spent a few hashing out the differences between fiction, science fiction, and fantasy (as several of our teachers said they didn't accept "genre" submissions, by which they meant "science fiction and fantasy", and we were disputing what those meant.)
What we came up with was: Fiction is an author's view of how people interact with and are changed by current society. Science fiction is an author's view of how people interact and are changed by a society that could be reasonably predicted to evolve from our current society. Fantasy is the author's view on how people interact and are changed by a society that is similar to ours but operates with different natural laws than ours.
As such, we came to the conclusion that in many ways science fiction is the most powerful fiction writing, because it's a warning. Later I came across a Stanislaw Lem quote, that says, in essence: if all memory of literature were lost, the first thing people would start writing would be science fiction because it warns us of the consequences of where we're going.
Some of the greatest current fiction writing is science fiction, called "speculative fiction" to make it sound more acceptable.
When I was very young, there was an amusement park in Denver that had this as one of their rides: a 10 meter diameter, polished wooden disc sitting in the middle of the funhouse room. Everyone got on it, and it started spinning, faster and faster, until there wasn't anyone left on it anymore. It was no rollercoaster, but it was pretty cool. I think they stopped after the rise of the litigation society, coz it wasn't what you'd call a safe ride.
Neither was the bit where they had a moving tunnel consisting of 1.5 meter diameter concrete drainlines rotating in opposite directions and you had to crawl through it. I bet that was great fun if you were fifteen and with your boy/girlfriend.
The price of the LED's largely dominates current LED lighting systems. Usually the LED driver or driver controller will require an inductor, a sense resistor, an input and output filtering cap, and if it's a controller running a lot of LEDs, a FET that's doing the switching. Add 2-3 small resistors and a cap for soft-starting, tying unused dimming options to ground, stuff like that. Most drivers will end up having half a dozen to a dozen parts associated with the driver circuit. But the nice thing about a dedicated driver, in addition to getting 80% - 95% efficiency, is that you can wire up the LEDs any way you want: in parallel, series, or a combination, and have them running at just about any voltage you want. One big benefit of wiring them up in several parallel strings with a comparatively smart controller is that they'll keep working even if a single LED dies, rather than the whole light dying. (We've dissected a number of series-LED strings driven by crappy diode-rectifier-big-cap-resistive-divider supplies, just about the worst supply possible, where a single LED has died, killing the whole ludicrously overpriced bulb and making another consumer think LED lighting is a bad idea. In this case, 95% of the price is LED.) Generally you'll be looking at twenty cents to maybe a dollar for the controller, about the same for the discrete components, three to twenty dollars for the LEDs, a dollar for the PCB, and about two to four dollars for the heatsink the LEDs are bonded to, and another two dollars for general hardware/assembly stuff to make it all UL compliant.
I think you're right: we don't worry as much about buses as airplanes because we can tell at a glance if there's going to be a problem, as it's a skill we have. (I happen to be a pilot, as well, so I might not have the same definition of 'we' as other people.)
What's interesting to me is that people don't really like buses -- they're definitely considered inferior. But chauffeurs are at least somewhat considered superior. Obviously the use of both of these reflects the user's finances to the observer, and that drives some of it, but I can't help wondering if our desire to run our lives, be the ones in control, isn't part of it. There isn't much demand for chauffeurs, considering how many very rich people there are out there. Complicated: if you're rich you buy a big car and then you want to drive it, and so forth.
>And people hate beeing reminded how small and fragile pieces in the grand scheme of things they are.
This is the heart of the problem. People hate feeling unsafe, more than they hate *being* unsafe, which is why they prefer to drive than be flown. (I wonder if people feel this way about chauffeurs or bus drivers: I've never heard people say this, but they must.)
The thing is: a pilot has thousands of hours of specific training, and more importantly, the pilot's almost certainly going to be the first to die if something goes wrong. The pilot has all the same concerns as a car driver, plus specialized training very few drivers have -- which is why commercial aircraft are safer than cars. Pilots feel just the same way car drivers do, and have better skills in addition. But that's not what people want. They want to feel like they're in control of their lives. Hence SUV's and a litigation-prone, zero-acceptable-risk society.
That'd work great if it were the door that gave out, but it was solid and 5 cm thick. The doorframe, however, was only made of 2x6 material, which doesn't stand up to repeated kicks. (Most doorframes are merely 1x4 or 1x6 material, by the way.) Now that particular door has a 3mm thick strike plate the size of a textbook, with multiple lag bolts going through both door headers. Which means next time they'll just bash out a window and go through that instead. Which is why I moved out of that house.
While I certainly can't attempt to answer the above, I do offer IRS Publication 525: Taxable and Nontaxable Income, which offers these gems: Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income. Found property. If you find and keep property that does not belong to you that has been lost or abandoned (treasure-trove), it is taxable to you at its fair market value in the first year it is your undisputed possession. Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity. Kickbacks. You must include kickbacks, side commissions, push money, or similar payments you receive in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity. Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner.
As a serious reply to your post -- I have a conflict over what sort of lock to use on doors. If I use the sort of lock you're talking about, house-breakers just bash out a window, reach in, and turn the knob. If I use the sort that requires a key from both sides, there's a possibility that someone will be stuck inside that door if there's a fire, and that'd really suck. But as it is, the question has mostly been answered, because I had the lock-on-both-sides installed and someone bashed out the window, found that there wasn't a knob, and kicked the door out of the doorframe. So I'm more likely to use the lock/knob ones in the future. *sigh*
As one of my friends is fond of saying, about his Unimog: "all the creature comforts! If it's too hot, you just turn on the air conditioning! Owait no air conditioning, so instead you just roll down the windows! Owait no windows... well, drive faster."
What'd be cool is if they had gimbal cup holders so when you're using that 45 degree climbing ability you don't spill your drink. I'll suggest that.
>So it's kinda like you own military hardware! How bad-ass!
But for about $14,000 -- far, far less than the cost of a new Hummer and lower than most used Hummers -- you can buy a Pinzgauer that *is* actually old military hardware and is *vastly* more capable than any civilian Hummer out there. I have several friends that own them; one is back from Afghanistan and claims that US Special Forces there tend to use Pinzgauers over HMMWV's because they have better ground clearance and performance. Not as good if you're getting shot at, coz the HMMWV's have retrofit armor, but hopefully most civilians who have wanna-be military dreams aren't getting shot at.
And how many tens of billions of dollars would our country have saved if they had gone bankrupt ten years ago? and we'd have electric cars to show for it.
>Sadly, complex thoughts and context don't seem to fare well in the minds of many people these days - maybe it's because they don't make for quick, easy to digest sound bites.
Or, more likely, it's because the quick sound bite agrees with their preconceptions, and justifies their anger based on those preconceptions.
People are poring over everything she's ever said or written. I'd hate being in her shoes. I know I'd be quoted as saying "this clown porn is amazing" when what I actually said was "the reviewer says that this clown porn is amazingly disgusting."
Using underwater thermoclines helps because pressure pulses (sonar) moving through thermoclines distort. Think refraction of light between air and water. It doesn't hide you, though: it just misrepresents your position. That's why subs since WWII have had bathythermographs, so they can map thermoclines to their advantage. If they know where the cold and hot areas are and people above them don't, they can use them. But it's only useful to keep you from getting hit by another sub's torpedo or a depth charge. It isn't useful if what you want is to be undetected, because you're still reflecting noise. This resonant thing tries to make you undetected.
I may be wrong because I'm not a submarine dude, just a dude who reads a lot, but that's my understanding.
It was estimated based on his known drag (from wind tunnel tests.) What I've used is a Powertap hub that has a calibrated strain gauge integrated into it.
(and in case you didn't read my other reply, it was based on 1-2 hours, not 24, as in the story, and for 24 hours, it looks like 0.1hp is dead on the money, so you're completely right in your estimate.)
Before 1775 there weren't any machine-cut bolts: they were all done by hand. After about 1830 the large majority of bolts were lathe-cut. I don't remember exactly when the first nail-forming machines were made, but people were still commonly making nails by hand until the 1870's. So, bolts and nails made by machine in the mid-1800's were cutting-edge technology in their time, much like the acoustic modem.
I used to have a stack of modems: a 1200 baud IBM about the size of three stacked textbooks, a 9600 baud Hayes maybe the size of a cigar box, and a 28,800 USRobotics, one of those weird little console things that look like a miniaturized Atari 800, on top of that. I think I got rid of the big ones about ten years ago, though. Old tech is kind of cool to look at but unless it's actually still usable, I tend to get bored with it pretty quickly and find it another home.
My 1989 Amiga is plugged in and runs fine (booted it up about a month ago.) My 1968 HP 182C oscilloscope still works pretty well. My (grandfather's, which I inherited) Simpson 1932 voltmeter works okay, as does a roughly 1940 Starrett 0.0001" (yes, ten thousandths of an inch) dial indicator. My (great grandfather's) post vise for blacksmithing, from circa 1880, also works pretty well. A set of andirons for a fireplace is also... functional? and I have no idea how old they are, but I know they've been in the family since the 1840's. The threaded fasteners that attach the top bit (knewel?) to the body appear to be hand-filed, although the nut-like objects are tap-threaded.
>1.) The Bible is pretty easy to access. In fact, you can often get it for free because its believers want you to read it.
Currently. There was a time when translation of the Bible out of Latin and into a language people could read got you burnt at the stake. But with that said, I think Scientology fails the laugh test much more clearly than Christianity.
However, with THAT said, the Scientologists I've known well were nicer to me than most Christians. Of course, that's because they were girlfriends...
For an hour or two, well over half a horsepower is possible, but for 24 hours (as the race in question) it looks like 0.1hp is typical of results seen in the Race Across America.
I don't mean to nitpick, but it's possible for a human to produce a *lot* more than 0.09hp for quite a while. In the 1989 Tour de France final time trial Greg LeMond produced roughly 2/3 horsepower continuously for just under an hour. I'm not of that caliber but I can crank out just under a third of a horsepower for over two hours if I'm feeling really motivated, according to an on-bike dynamometer.
While I'm on the subject, humans have pretty good torque characteristics, similar in shape to a steam engine's: flat up to about 90-120 rpm (depending on training) and then dropping off towards zero fairly quickly.
Some electric motors have their max torque at 0 rpm, dropping linearly to zero torque at their max rpm, but others have sigmoidal or other odd torque/rpm curves; compound-wound and series-wound motors diverge (in opposite directions) from standard dc motors (if I remember correctly.)
I'm a fan of La Raza Cosmica myself: we are all mutts, and stronger for it.
My blue-eyed, blond-haired, very pale friend Freya is, by birth, South African. My brown-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned friend Natalie comes from two generations of people from Ohio, who moved there from Thailand. Freya routinely checks the "african-american" box on forms, and Natalie checks "other".
I've yet to find an authoritative source, but it's my understanding that Iceland is the least diverse country in the world, genetically speaking. this ref just says that they're probably the least diverse in Europe. I'll keep looking.
He works as a pure surgeon, not in ob/gyn, so he personally has little to gain from it, although it does support a broader thesis he's been talking about for the last couple of years. However, with that said, it's not like he's just making a claim. As I said, "shows evidence": he has, on a couple of occasions, cited widespread studies and statistics to support his claim that c-section (and gastric bypass surgery) when performed by experts who only do that specific surgery and do many, many of them per year, have extremely low rates of complications and side-effects. No obstruction, no breech birth, no episiotomy, no child asphyxiation during a prolonged delivery. As per the article, in the 1930's more women died during natural childbirth with doctors attending, than died on their own or with midwives. That was the point at which pressure within the profession turned to routine c-sections. Instead of learning one technique for a breech birth, another for a stuck shoulder, another yet for head sideways and jammed against pelvis, they just learn one technique and learn it well.
There's an interesting piece on the rise of cesarian section delivery written by New Yorker staff writer and active surgeon Atul Gawande, where he claims and shows evidence that c-section replaced forceps delivery because forceps delivery required experience, skill, and physical dexterity, while c-section could be taught by rote, essentially. His underlying thesis is that a mass-production system of doctoring means everyone will get basically the same level of quality of care, rather than having some superstars and some real duds. But in the meantime, it's become so routine, and so highly practiced, that it's rapidly approaching parity with natural childbirth, as regards complications to mother and child, and he thinks at some point it'll be considered the default method for childbirth.
>Which is mostly women in poverty making shitty choices.
There are a lot of serious papers about this subject, that are less fluffy and USAToday than that New Yorker article. I'm not going to start googling child sex trade articles from work, but I've read them in the past since I've written about this extensively elsewhere. The fluffy article's fundamental assertions are apparently correct. Consider that if someone puts a gun to your head and says "gimme your wallet or I'll kill you" -- you have a choice, in a manner of speaking. This isn't really a different situation: women who are barely literate, physically constrained in a country where nobody speaks their language, where they have neither money nor a good idea where they are, and don't get fed unless they do what they're told. That's not what we mean when we use the word "choice". That's a "choice" the way that someone "chooses" not to go to prison when locked in a cop car on the way to Joliet. That's why I call it "coercive".
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When I was taking a lot of composition/creative writing classes, we spent a few hashing out the differences between fiction, science fiction, and fantasy (as several of our teachers said they didn't accept "genre" submissions, by which they meant "science fiction and fantasy", and we were disputing what those meant.)
What we came up with was:
Fiction is an author's view of how people interact with and are changed by current society.
Science fiction is an author's view of how people interact and are changed by a society that could be reasonably predicted to evolve from our current society.
Fantasy is the author's view on how people interact and are changed by a society that is similar to ours but operates with different natural laws than ours.
As such, we came to the conclusion that in many ways science fiction is the most powerful fiction writing, because it's a warning.
Later I came across a Stanislaw Lem quote, that says, in essence: if all memory of literature were lost, the first thing people would start writing would be science fiction because it warns us of the consequences of where we're going.
Some of the greatest current fiction writing is science fiction, called "speculative fiction" to make it sound more acceptable.
When I was very young, there was an amusement park in Denver that had this as one of their rides: a 10 meter diameter, polished wooden disc sitting in the middle of the funhouse room. Everyone got on it, and it started spinning, faster and faster, until there wasn't anyone left on it anymore. It was no rollercoaster, but it was pretty cool. I think they stopped after the rise of the litigation society, coz it wasn't what you'd call a safe ride.
Neither was the bit where they had a moving tunnel consisting of 1.5 meter diameter concrete drainlines rotating in opposite directions and you had to crawl through it. I bet that was great fun if you were fifteen and with your boy/girlfriend.
The price of the LED's largely dominates current LED lighting systems.
Usually the LED driver or driver controller will require an inductor, a sense resistor, an input and output filtering cap, and if it's a controller running a lot of LEDs, a FET that's doing the switching. Add 2-3 small resistors and a cap for soft-starting, tying unused dimming options to ground, stuff like that. Most drivers will end up having half a dozen to a dozen parts associated with the driver circuit.
But the nice thing about a dedicated driver, in addition to getting 80% - 95% efficiency, is that you can wire up the LEDs any way you want: in parallel, series, or a combination, and have them running at just about any voltage you want. One big benefit of wiring them up in several parallel strings with a comparatively smart controller is that they'll keep working even if a single LED dies, rather than the whole light dying. (We've dissected a number of series-LED strings driven by crappy diode-rectifier-big-cap-resistive-divider supplies, just about the worst supply possible, where a single LED has died, killing the whole ludicrously overpriced bulb and making another consumer think LED lighting is a bad idea. In this case, 95% of the price is LED.)
Generally you'll be looking at twenty cents to maybe a dollar for the controller, about the same for the discrete components, three to twenty dollars for the LEDs, a dollar for the PCB, and about two to four dollars for the heatsink the LEDs are bonded to, and another two dollars for general hardware/assembly stuff to make it all UL compliant.
I think you're right: we don't worry as much about buses as airplanes because we can tell at a glance if there's going to be a problem, as it's a skill we have.
(I happen to be a pilot, as well, so I might not have the same definition of 'we' as other people.)
What's interesting to me is that people don't really like buses -- they're definitely considered inferior. But chauffeurs are at least somewhat considered superior. Obviously the use of both of these reflects the user's finances to the observer, and that drives some of it, but I can't help wondering if our desire to run our lives, be the ones in control, isn't part of it. There isn't much demand for chauffeurs, considering how many very rich people there are out there. Complicated: if you're rich you buy a big car and then you want to drive it, and so forth.
>And people hate beeing reminded how small and fragile pieces in the grand scheme of things they are.
This is the heart of the problem. People hate feeling unsafe, more than they hate *being* unsafe, which is why they prefer to drive than be flown.
(I wonder if people feel this way about chauffeurs or bus drivers: I've never heard people say this, but they must.)
The thing is: a pilot has thousands of hours of specific training, and more importantly, the pilot's almost certainly going to be the first to die if something goes wrong. The pilot has all the same concerns as a car driver, plus specialized training very few drivers have -- which is why commercial aircraft are safer than cars. Pilots feel just the same way car drivers do, and have better skills in addition.
But that's not what people want. They want to feel like they're in control of their lives. Hence SUV's and a litigation-prone, zero-acceptable-risk society.
That'd work great if it were the door that gave out, but it was solid and 5 cm thick. The doorframe, however, was only made of 2x6 material, which doesn't stand up to repeated kicks. (Most doorframes are merely 1x4 or 1x6 material, by the way.) Now that particular door has a 3mm thick strike plate the size of a textbook, with multiple lag bolts going through both door headers. Which means next time they'll just bash out a window and go through that instead.
Which is why I moved out of that house.
While I certainly can't attempt to answer the above, I do offer IRS Publication 525: Taxable and Nontaxable Income, which offers these gems:
Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.
Found property. If you find and keep property that does not belong to you that has been lost or abandoned (treasure-trove), it is taxable to you at its fair market value in the first year it is your undisputed possession.
Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
Kickbacks. You must include kickbacks, side commissions, push money, or similar payments you receive in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner.
As a serious reply to your post -- I have a conflict over what sort of lock to use on doors.
If I use the sort of lock you're talking about, house-breakers just bash out a window, reach in, and turn the knob.
If I use the sort that requires a key from both sides, there's a possibility that someone will be stuck inside that door if there's a fire, and that'd really suck.
But as it is, the question has mostly been answered, because I had the lock-on-both-sides installed and someone bashed out the window, found that there wasn't a knob, and kicked the door out of the doorframe. So I'm more likely to use the lock/knob ones in the future.
*sigh*
As one of my friends is fond of saying, about his Unimog: "all the creature comforts! If it's too hot, you just turn on the air conditioning! Owait no air conditioning, so instead you just roll down the windows! Owait no windows... well, drive faster."
What'd be cool is if they had gimbal cup holders so when you're using that 45 degree climbing ability you don't spill your drink. I'll suggest that.
>So it's kinda like you own military hardware! How bad-ass!
But for about $14,000 -- far, far less than the cost of a new Hummer and lower than most used Hummers -- you can buy a Pinzgauer that *is* actually old military hardware and is *vastly* more capable than any civilian Hummer out there. I have several friends that own them; one is back from Afghanistan and claims that US Special Forces there tend to use Pinzgauers over HMMWV's because they have better ground clearance and performance. Not as good if you're getting shot at, coz the HMMWV's have retrofit armor, but hopefully most civilians who have wanna-be military dreams aren't getting shot at.
And how many tens of billions of dollars would our country have saved if they had gone bankrupt ten years ago? and we'd have electric cars to show for it.
>Sadly, complex thoughts and context don't seem to fare well in the minds of many people these days - maybe it's because they don't make for quick, easy to digest sound bites.
Or, more likely, it's because the quick sound bite agrees with their preconceptions, and justifies their anger based on those preconceptions.
People are poring over everything she's ever said or written. I'd hate being in her shoes. I know I'd be quoted as saying "this clown porn is amazing" when what I actually said was "the reviewer says that this clown porn is amazingly disgusting."
Using underwater thermoclines helps because pressure pulses (sonar) moving through thermoclines distort. Think refraction of light between air and water. It doesn't hide you, though: it just misrepresents your position. That's why subs since WWII have had bathythermographs, so they can map thermoclines to their advantage. If they know where the cold and hot areas are and people above them don't, they can use them.
But it's only useful to keep you from getting hit by another sub's torpedo or a depth charge. It isn't useful if what you want is to be undetected, because you're still reflecting noise.
This resonant thing tries to make you undetected.
I may be wrong because I'm not a submarine dude, just a dude who reads a lot, but that's my understanding.
It was estimated based on his known drag (from wind tunnel tests.)
What I've used is a Powertap hub that has a calibrated strain gauge integrated into it.
(and in case you didn't read my other reply, it was based on 1-2 hours, not 24, as in the story, and for 24 hours, it looks like 0.1hp is dead on the money, so you're completely right in your estimate.)
Before 1775 there weren't any machine-cut bolts: they were all done by hand. After about 1830 the large majority of bolts were lathe-cut.
I don't remember exactly when the first nail-forming machines were made, but people were still commonly making nails by hand until the 1870's. So, bolts and nails made by machine in the mid-1800's were cutting-edge technology in their time, much like the acoustic modem.
I used to have a stack of modems: a 1200 baud IBM about the size of three stacked textbooks, a 9600 baud Hayes maybe the size of a cigar box, and a 28,800 USRobotics, one of those weird little console things that look like a miniaturized Atari 800, on top of that. I think I got rid of the big ones about ten years ago, though. Old tech is kind of cool to look at but unless it's actually still usable, I tend to get bored with it pretty quickly and find it another home.
My 1989 Amiga is plugged in and runs fine (booted it up about a month ago.) ... functional? and I have no idea how old they are, but I know they've been in the family since the 1840's. The threaded fasteners that attach the top bit (knewel?) to the body appear to be hand-filed, although the nut-like objects are tap-threaded.
My 1968 HP 182C oscilloscope still works pretty well.
My (grandfather's, which I inherited) Simpson 1932 voltmeter works okay, as does a roughly 1940 Starrett 0.0001" (yes, ten thousandths of an inch) dial indicator.
My (great grandfather's) post vise for blacksmithing, from circa 1880, also works pretty well.
A set of andirons for a fireplace is also
>1.) The Bible is pretty easy to access. In fact, you can often get it for free because its believers want you to read it.
Currently.
There was a time when translation of the Bible out of Latin and into a language people could read got you burnt at the stake.
But with that said, I think Scientology fails the laugh test much more clearly than Christianity.
However, with THAT said, the Scientologists I've known well were nicer to me than most Christians. Of course, that's because they were girlfriends...
For an hour or two, well over half a horsepower is possible, but for 24 hours (as the race in question) it looks like 0.1hp is typical of results seen in the Race Across America.
I don't mean to nitpick, but it's possible for a human to produce a *lot* more than 0.09hp for quite a while. In the 1989 Tour de France final time trial Greg LeMond produced roughly 2/3 horsepower continuously for just under an hour. I'm not of that caliber but I can crank out just under a third of a horsepower for over two hours if I'm feeling really motivated, according to an on-bike dynamometer.
While I'm on the subject, humans have pretty good torque characteristics, similar in shape to a steam engine's: flat up to about 90-120 rpm (depending on training) and then dropping off towards zero fairly quickly.
Some electric motors have their max torque at 0 rpm, dropping linearly to zero torque at their max rpm, but others have sigmoidal or other odd torque/rpm curves; compound-wound and series-wound motors diverge (in opposite directions) from standard dc motors (if I remember correctly.)
Yeah, maps do have a certain point of view. The finest thief in history was the first person who drew a property map.
I'm a fan of La Raza Cosmica myself: we are all mutts, and stronger for it.
My blue-eyed, blond-haired, very pale friend Freya is, by birth, South African. My brown-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned friend Natalie comes from two generations of people from Ohio, who moved there from Thailand. Freya routinely checks the "african-american" box on forms, and Natalie checks "other".
I've yet to find an authoritative source, but it's my understanding that Iceland is the least diverse country in the world, genetically speaking. this ref just says that they're probably the least diverse in Europe. I'll keep looking.
He works as a pure surgeon, not in ob/gyn, so he personally has little to gain from it, although it does support a broader thesis he's been talking about for the last couple of years.
However, with that said, it's not like he's just making a claim. As I said, "shows evidence": he has, on a couple of occasions, cited widespread studies and statistics to support his claim that c-section (and gastric bypass surgery) when performed by experts who only do that specific surgery and do many, many of them per year, have extremely low rates of complications and side-effects. No obstruction, no breech birth, no episiotomy, no child asphyxiation during a prolonged delivery.
As per the article, in the 1930's more women died during natural childbirth with doctors attending, than died on their own or with midwives. That was the point at which pressure within the profession turned to routine c-sections. Instead of learning one technique for a breech birth, another for a stuck shoulder, another yet for head sideways and jammed against pelvis, they just learn one technique and learn it well.
There's an interesting piece on the rise of cesarian section delivery written by New Yorker staff writer and active surgeon Atul Gawande, where he claims and shows evidence that c-section replaced forceps delivery because forceps delivery required experience, skill, and physical dexterity, while c-section could be taught by rote, essentially. His underlying thesis is that a mass-production system of doctoring means everyone will get basically the same level of quality of care, rather than having some superstars and some real duds. But in the meantime, it's become so routine, and so highly practiced, that it's rapidly approaching parity with natural childbirth, as regards complications to mother and child, and he thinks at some point it'll be considered the default method for childbirth.
>Which is mostly women in poverty making shitty choices.
There are a lot of serious papers about this subject, that are less fluffy and USAToday than that New Yorker article. I'm not going to start googling child sex trade articles from work, but I've read them in the past since I've written about this extensively elsewhere. The fluffy article's fundamental assertions are apparently correct.
Consider that if someone puts a gun to your head and says "gimme your wallet or I'll kill you" -- you have a choice, in a manner of speaking. This isn't really a different situation: women who are barely literate, physically constrained in a country where nobody speaks their language, where they have neither money nor a good idea where they are, and don't get fed unless they do what they're told.
That's not what we mean when we use the word "choice". That's a "choice" the way that someone "chooses" not to go to prison when locked in a cop car on the way to Joliet. That's why I call it "coercive".